What’ in a
name
Probably the most important gift that a
parent gives to a child is a name. Every child is born into a family and it is
assumed has the right to the family name and also the privileges that comes
with belonging to that family. Giving the child a name involves the hope and
aspirations that the parents have for the child. It is the designation which
the parents hope the child will go by for all of his life time. Then to
identify the child in the family the child is given his/her personal name which
is different from any other name in the family and later to ascribe credit to a
particular individual.
It is debatable but in naming the child
the parents were being prophetic because they were bestowing on the child what
they wanted the child to become later in life that is when the acquired the
status of being a man or woman. Many will debate whether a child actually
becomes what his name means. This somewhat depends on the culture in which the
child is born because in some cultures as soon as the child knows the meaning
of his name and how his name make him different from other children then he
begin to learn to act out the meaning of his name.
Parents that just arbitrarily name their
child leave the child to search to define himself and to find out who he wants
to be. The child is left to be anything when the parents had the option of
bestowing that gift in naming the child when the child was born. It is just as
bad when parents name their child and the child realizes that he can be more
than the parents expects or designated. The child has to continually struggle
to reverse what was bestowed by his parents or go about changing his name. Some
parents have concluded that the name given originally to their child proved to
be hindrance to the progress of the child and have gone about and changed the
child’s name to one more acceptable. The Bible contains some of the oldest
records that are available to man and in the Bible we have some interesting
name changes.
Abram and Sarai had their names changed
to Abraham and Sarah by God. We are not told the name Moses’ mother gave him
but the Egyptian princess named him Moses. Jacob had his name changed to Israel
by God. Oshea had his name changed to Jehoshua (Joshua) by Moses. Simon had his
name changed to Peter by Jesus. Joses had his name changed to Barnabas by the
Apostles. We are not told how Saul got his name change to Paul. The name
changes indicated change in calling, destinies or character.
Different cultures have different ways
as to how they go about naming a child. In some cultures the child was named
after the day on which it was born or to commemorate significant events that
happen at the same time that the child was born. In modern times many children
are named after sports personalities and television characters. Television
characters use stage name and this often that children are given. Unfortunately
these persons have nothing to commend them either on stage or in their real
personal life off stage. This is one of the reasons that many hope that parents
naming their children are not being prophetic because television character
lives are a mess both on and off the screen. The same can be said for many
sports stars and many celebrities and persons in high office.
Some parents have chosen to name their
children after some particularly bad or evil character who existed at the time
of the child’s birth or historically.
In modern times the United Nations has list of
rights to which every child that is born on planet earth is entitled. Near the
top of this list is the right to have a name. Previous mention has been made
that one of the reason for this is to distinguish and identify particular
persons. There have also been steps taken to distinguish individuals especially
in a world where there may be hundreds of persons in some instance that goes by
the same name.
Probably the most ancient records we
have of names are found in the Bible. The preservation of name and the passing
on of name and genes were very important. Such was the importance of this that
provisions were made hundreds of years before Moses incorporated it into the
law for a man who reached adulthood and got married and died before he fathered
any children. When such an event should happened then the man’s brother or his
next of kin was to marry the widow and the first child they have would be
regarded as the man that had died child. The worst scenario that could happen
was for a man’s name to become extinct because there was no male to propagate
the family name.
There
were instances that men had transgressed against God and he removed that family
name by destroying all the males. The ultimate curse in the Bible was for all
the males of a family to die out. The ultimate blessing was to have many sons
propagate the family name.
One of the wonders of modern inventions
is the ability to keep records. Some of the advantages of record keeping are;
1.
It allows you to
trace and know who fore parents were. The ancient people of Israel were very
careful about their genealogy and in modern times many are seeing the
advantages and checking on their ancestors. It is no longer sufficient to say
that I am alive so I am not interested in who were before me.
2.
Records also keep
alive misdeeds as permanent blots. Many think that the day the die that is
their end. Unfortunately we die but our records lives on. It is sometimes years
after death that a person’s worth or contribution is recognized and the
deserved honor is bestowed post humus. This is one instance that the designated
name identifies exactly who is being honored.
3.
Records are being
purged and the names of undeserving are being removed and their names are in
some instances being replaced with that of the deserving. One of the examples
is sports where some cheated to get to the top and their names are being
removed. This is not a case of the name being removed but the name of the
person will always be remembered with disgrace and infamy.
One of man’s greatest desires is to be
immortalized. Everyman knows that he has a limited time to spend on the earth.
The fact is he knows that there are so many to die that death may come at
anytime so his desire is that when he dies that is not his end but that there
is something that he leaves to remember him by. The thing that he is given to
distinguish him from every other person on planet earth is his name. A person
dies but his name does not die. Even if a man should set out to make a name for
himself he cannot say for sure how history will record his name.
There are men who have been dead for
hundreds of years and even now attempts are being made to clear their name
because every time their records are checked there is a blot. If the man is
dead and is no more then succeeding generations should not care as much about
clearing the person’s record.
History refuses to forget its brave and
noble Children. From ancient times it cheers and honors the selfless,
courageous and noble. Some have just recently died and some have been dead for
hundred of years yet they continue to speak by inspiring the living to rise to
a more noble cause because if they in their time and circumstance stood tall
those in the present face less dire circumstance so they can do it too.
History has its nefarious, ignoble and
evil characters also who will always be remembered with contempt and whose name
will never be mentioned among those of the greats that have blessed this earth.
Forever condemned to be objects of disgrace and contempt.
Very few really want to be neutral and
want to have lived here on the earth and pass into oblivion and to have
impacted the earth in no way. No one really want to have been on the earth
lived and died and the earth was no different for his having been here.
Life then has hand out some rather harsh
sentences and have not been very just if when a man dies that is the end of
him. That process by which man came into being also designated that he be given
a name so that there is a difference from each other. The body dies at death
and no man recalls the body and very few are interested in what a man’s body
looked like when a hundred years later he is studied. For The name becomes
important for it identifies the one who was in the body and it was not so much
the body but who was living in that body. The basic idea is that the man body
dies but who he was lives on and continue to affect and influence the living.
He is also remembered so is he really dead?
This
brings in the question of religion and science.
The evolution theory make man the product of
an accident or at least began as an accident, survived the chaotic stage and
now have become highly organized and developed. Now it is only man’s body that
dies because his name is kept on the records and from time to time some record
are revisited. The man is not dead in the sense that he is remembered and
continues to influence the living. It is evident that it is not the man’s body
that is alive. It is not unreasonable to believe that the very part of man that
continues to be remembered could also continue to live somewhere else. Science
has no proof that this is not so.
Some branches of religion say this is
not so also because there is a God to face after the body dies. These
religionists admit that there will be a God to face sooner or later but reject
the idea that there could be an aspect to man (soul and spirit) that continue
living after death.
The name with which a man has been
designated has so much importance attached to it that in the prison system in
some countries when a man enters a penal institution his name is replaced with
a number. The basic idea being that he has violated the right to the use of the
name and so that right has been removed.
The Name of God
The most significant name in the Bible
is the name of the Lord God. The Lord God is big, mighty majestic holy powerful
among so many adjectives that do not adequately describe him that no one name
says adequately who he is. In the Bible as different people experienced his
might and power they added new names to describe him. Also there were the
personal names that God used to designate himself. It is because of this that
we have a number of names but they all referred to the one God. There were also
the times when God chose to refer to himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob. These were the people that the ancient people of Israel revered as the
father of their nation.
There are a number of names by which the
Ancient Israelites knew the Lord God among them El Shaddai, El Elyon, Adonai,
El Olam, Elohim, Jehovah. The name Jehovah had sixteen compound titles that
went with it.
In the list of the Ten Commandments
that the Lord God spoke to the people of Israel the third commandment forbid
taking the name of the Lord God in vain. Many have struggled with the
interpretation of exactly how this command should be obeyed especially in light
of the fact that there are many names for God in the Bible. Some have gone so
far as to interpret it that the name of the Lord God should not be erased (as
in the case of writing or typing and there is an error or misspelling).
The
name of God must be borne in mind that the names of God speaks to God’s
character and the names of God represent the highest being in the universe.
Also it must be borne in mind that the names of God speak of his justice
holiness mercy and truth.
When the Lord God says do not take his
name in vain it speak among other things of not using his name with disrespect,
contempt or in any way that is not in keeping with his character. It also
involved one being fully aware of what is in involved when one is under oath
and swears, using God’s name, to tell the truth. That is, should he not be truthful in what he
says he is calling on the highest being in the universe to administer
punishment as the ultimate all knowing judge of the universe. It is dishonoring
the Lord God’s character in those instances when he is called upon to elevate
his character to be on par with that of the Lord God. The same principle
applies when a person makes a solemn vow before the Lord God and not follows
through with the vow.
The name of the Lord God represented his
character and who he is. Any disrespect for the name of the Lord God was
disrespecting the owner of the name. The Lord God would have the ancient people
of Israel to know that he would not lightly on those who lightly viewed him and
were disrespectful and lightly used his name. Neither would he take kindly to
those who insulted his name.
The ancient Jews had such a high respect for
the name of God the scribes would never write the name of the Lord God for fear
that it may be mispronounced or pronounced in a disrespectful way while being
read. This partly explains YHWH which the scribes would use whenever they
encountered the name of the Lord God. This was the most important name for God
but over time it pronunciation was lost.
